The Paths Chosen
by Survivah
Summary: Agron has been Nasir's bodyguard for years, and a slave of the household for longer than that, but a ripped shoulder muscle and a marriage proposal bring complications to Agron and Nasir's secret friendship. AU, Nagron.
1. Chapter 1

The face of Nasir's father is as it always is: stern. Be it sunrise or sunset, a funeral or the grandest of holidays, the visage of Asu Faruk is a stony one, made of crags and valleys carved from the hardest of granite. His father's mouth opens, a fault line cracking apart, and Asu says, "your bodyguard has ripped a muscle in his shoulder. There is no need to go to your lesson today," before returning to his breakfast as though he has not just ignited the flames of fear in Nasir's heart.

"Agron is injured?" he asks, casually reaching for a pomegranate from the carved mahogany bowl at the center of their table. With Father, it is important to keep emotions schooled, affections tamped down, lest they displease him.

Nodding, Asu slices into the meat laying across his plate, fingers wielding the knife expertly as it cuts. "Unloading the shipments from harbor, his shoulder failed him. Medicus gives him one or two months to recover." Shaking his head grimly, Asu takes a bite, chews thoroughly, swallows, then continues: "Likely we may sell him at half price, then find some other to teach you the spear and protect your person."

"No." The word falls from Nasir's lips unbidden, the damned thing. Short and defiant in the most direct of ways. Nasir scrambles to correct himself. "I mean only that he has been a good teacher, and he has served our house long and well. It would be a waste to remove him. Perhaps he could be redirected to some other task as he recovers?"

If Agron is allowed to stay, he will be angered at Nasir for allowing such coddling. Knowing Agron, he will scoff and say that he needs no new assignment, he will merely work through the pain from his ripped shoulder. The man thinks he is a god, not a slave, Nasir marvels fondly.

Raising one thick eyebrow, his father inquires, "what would that be?"

The Faruks sit around the table in silence. Nasir has no idea. What job in the house could hold Agron's unquenchable energy, or more notably, his tendency towards violence?

From further down the table, Mother quietly notes, "we will be having many banquets now that the Saada family is coming from Damascus to join us here-"

"How is this relevant, Yalda?" Asu asks tiredly.

Lowering her eyes, Yalda fiddles with her utensils. "I mean only that you might place Nasir's manservant in the kitchens as extra help, to be replaced by Agron. Nasir is the only one in the house who tolerates the brute, let him hold company with the man."

Letting one harsh bubble of laughter burst from his chest, Asu reaches for the wine, waving one ringed hand. "So be it. If you insist on keeping the man, you take care of him. He shall be as an injured dog you bring from street."

Nasir nods and smiles. Agron is safe, kept from the vicious Roman slave markets, (the Faruk household may be rough with its slaves, but is yet kinder than the true Roman homes of the city,) and relegated to the less taxing work of attending to Nasir in his rooms.

Alone. Attending Nasir in his rooms, alone. Bringing food to Nasir, alone. Dressing Nasir in the morning and undressing him at night, only the two of them in the soft candlelight of Nasir's chambers, with no distracting clash of weapons in the practice field, no call of other bodyguards to each other in the background.

Nasir wonders if indoors, at night, Agron's eyes will look more or less green.

Jupiter save him, but Nasir does not think he will survive this.

XXXXX

The Faruk family lives in one of the many polished white houses that litter the grander districts of Rome. Its airs are perfumed to the point of choking, its walls draped in multitudinous flimsy, glittering fabrics, and any open space holds a sculpture placed delicately on a pedestal. The rooms are wide and open and drafty, the gardens ornamental and pointless.

But behind the house, there are buildings which serve purpose, that stand without adornment and smell like sweat and dry dirt.

Nasir opens the rough timber door to one of these buildings. The rooms here are smaller, so the occupants of the room cannot see him standing in the doorway. He catches a few strains of conversation.

"So you're lame, then, Agron? What's to be done with you?"

"Perhaps we can use his parts," one of the bodyguards, Nasir thinks it is Baron, comments cheekily. "A good bag could be made out of that hide."

"Fuck all of you," drawls Agron's voice. "I would string you both up by your guts and strangle you by them long before you could put tanning knife to my skin."

"You are not hale enough to braid my hair, Agron."

A loud thud. Followed by another and a grunt of pain.

Is Agron fighting with a broken shoulder? The fool. Nasir round the corner so the guards can see him, and yes, Agron has engaged Baron and has him in a headlock against the slightly dusty floor. Even with half of his side injured, Agron is a better fighter than any of them, his sizable muscles barely straining.

But Nasir would see them strain not at all, so he sighs loudly and says exasperatedly, "Agron."

Agron's head snaps up to see Nasir, and one of his wide, white-toothed grins stretches across his face, making dimples ripple across his cheeks. "Nasir. Wait but a moment, for I will be finished with fucking Baron in less time than that."

"I do not doubt it," Nasir retorts, "but I fear your arm will be finished long before."

Snorting, Agron releases Baron from his headlock and stands, palms up. "To assuage fears, I stand." He punctuates the remark with a light kick to Baron's ribs, then follows Nasir out of the barracks.

Away from the gaze of the other guards, Agron lets one of his wide hands fall onto the top of Nasir's head. "What brings little man to the barracks? Surely it is not the stench."

"Nor the titles I am called," Nasir grumbles, smacking at Agron's hand, softly enough that it does not fall away. "You know my opinion of being called 'little man.'"

"I only speak it for it is accurate," Agron shoots back cheekily.

"So says the giant."

"So says the man who gives me such a clear view of the top of his head."

They fall silent as they pass a group of slaves scrubbing down the tiles in the entrance of the house. Even the most well-intentioned of slaves may whisper to the wrong ear, and then where will Agron be? Nasir knows of the rumors that they are fucking, and those are harmless. Rumors of something deeper are what may stir trouble.

It is the great irony of Nasir's life that reality follows the exact opposite of the rumors. He will not touch Agron. He cannot.

"You evade question," Agron points out, raising his thin eyebrows and bending to look into Nasir's face. "What brings us to main house? Of more importance: when may I leave?" He looks around the sparkling hallway they walk through with disdain.

Nasir grimaces. One of Agron's large hands hooks under his chin and brings it up so Agron may study his expression.

"Your face holds the look of bad news."

Sighing, Nasir pushes ever so slightly further into Agron's hand and hopes Agron does not notice. "Your departure from the house is not for months." Nasir goes on to explain Agron's change of station, and Agron groans.

"How am I to be a manservant? I know not how to achieve this," Agron waves a hand at Nasir's oiled and combed hair, the smooth pleats of his robe, "nor any other act meant to be pleasing to the eye. My place is with a weapon in my hand."

"I know this." Nasir reluctantly pulls away from Agron's hand so they may continue walking along the polished floors. Agron leaves slight dirty footprints behind him. "I know this does not please you. But I knew that return to Roman auction house would please you less."

Reluctantly, Agron acknowledges, "you speak truth. Slavery here is preferable to slavery elsewhere."

"Have you not told me that slavery is slavery, no matter the house?" Nasir inquires as they enter his chambers.

"Yes, but some houses hold... advantages over others." Agron is standing behind Nasir, so Nasir cannot see his face.

Nasir makes some slight assenting noise, then moves to the side so Agron may fully see the room. In all the years they have known each other, their meetings have been on a packed dirt floor with wooden swords in hand, or outside the walls of the house with Agron steady behind Nasir's back, fending off pickpockets. Agron has never seen the primped flourishes that adorn Nasir's rooms: the fine weave of the blankets on his well cushioned bed. The plentiful amphoras and alabastrons lined up on the carved set of drawers. The wide window looking out on the entirety of the city.

"A fine set of rooms," Agron comments neutrally, a grimy hand hovering over the pristine grain of one of Nasir's sheets. He adjusts one of his slightly bloodstained wrist guards in a movement that seems unconscious.

Nasir swallows. "Do you think less of me for it?"

Agron sweeps his gaze across the room again before his eyes finally land on Nasir. "No. We take the lot we are given. This was your lot."

"An unfair one," Nasir protests. For what reason, he does not know.

Shrugging, Agron moves to unbuckle one of the many straps crossing his chest. "Yes. But I am used to unfairness. It will not scare me now."

Nasir steps forward to stop Agron before his undressing goes any further. "Go to Chadara. She and the washer women will put you in garb befitting a manservant."

Rolling his eyes, Agron re-buckles the strap. "The washer women. Now there is something to fear."

Nasir smiles. "I know not if I will be able to recognize you without your usual protection of dirt."

Giving a mock shudder, Agron opens the door to leave. "I fear more the gossip of those women. By the time I leave, word shall be that I have lost both arms and be at work making your bed with my teeth."

Chuckling, Nasir waves a hand as Agron exits.

No, Nasir thinks, eyeing the pallet placed just at the base of his bed where his manservant is meant to sleep, he will not survive this.

XXXXX

Nasir remembers when Agron first came to the Faruk house:

_The boy was still in his teens, tall, but his age was evident by the defiant spark in his eye and that cocky sneer. Nasir may have been younger than their new slave, but even he could tell that the boy was an idiot. What slave sneers at their dominus like that and expects any sort of regard? Better to keep your head down and nod, as Nasir himself does with his father. _

_"Fresh from Germania," Asu informed his son. "Uncouth, but strong. He shall be a guard, if we can bring to heel."_

_One of the higher ranking guards cracked his whip, and the defiant teenager held steady, his eyes still glaring into those of Nasir's father. The boy did not fear pain._

_When the whip fell, Nasir realized that the boy was not afraid because he was used to the cut of the whip. There were grids of scars lined across his back already, most still fresh. _

_Nasir felt nauseated ––he didn't know why–– and he asked his father, "what is his name?"_

_Asu opened his mouth to spout out whatever Roman name had been given unto the slave, but then the boy looked to Nasir, green eyes cutting through the distance between them, and said "Agron. I am called Agron."_

_It was the first time Nasir had ever seen anyone cut his father off, and in that moment, he was already caught._

XXXXX

Agron is exercising his shoulder again. Nasir can tell, the noises of exertion are not as soft as Agron believes them to be.

"Stop, lest you break open your shoulder again," Nasir groans, raising his head from his pillow.

Coming into view, Agron leans over the bed to tug on Nasir's hair. "What else am I to do when you laze morning away?"

"The sun has not yet broken horizon," Nasir grumbles, pulling himself to a sitting position and letting the sheet fall to around his bare waist.

Clearing his throat, Agron moves to the crate that holds Nasir's robes. "You have never had to rise with farm animals. One week amongst them and you will wake before lazy sun."

"Yes," Nasir acknowledges, rolling his eyes. "The goat farm. What stories have I heard of it. From the tales you spin, Agron, you would have me think that goat farms are more vicious than the arenas."

"You have never seen a mother goat giving birth," Agron retorts grimly, affecting a look of horror in his eyes.

"Nor do I wish to, much thanks to your descriptions."

Nasir climbs from the embrace of his bed to the cold tiles below. He has learned in the last week that there is no sleeping once Agron has awoken from his pallet on the floor. Agron is too vivid and lively for morning quiet.

Digging through the crate, no doubt wrinkling every last piece of fine silk, Agron retrieves a robe in cardinal red. "Here. As red as a goat's afterbirth."

Chuckling, Nasir lets himself be manhandled into a position wherein Agron can slip the robe around Nasir's shoulders. He has learned how to fold it in the preceding days, and now the ritual of morning dress is filled not with disgruntled questions, but the soft whisper of fabric between Agron's fingers as he pulls it across Nasir's body, enfolds Nasir's chest in red silk and ties the corded belt around his hips.

Nasir tries to suppress the shiver that runs through him when Agron's fingers scrape across his lower back, but as always, he fails.

"So cold in mornings," Agron observes, and the warmth at Nasir's back disappears for a moment. One of Nasir's blankets falls across his shoulders. It threatens to slip, and Agron pulls it back on. "Too used to Damascus heat."

"It has been some time since I lived in Damascus," Nasir argues. "It is your ice loving German blood that fools you into thinking this," he gestures at the chilly morning, "is warmth."

"I could say the opposite for your Syrian blood," Agron retorts. "Ah, but I see!" he ducks down suddenly to scoop Nasir off of his feet and over Agron's shoulder. "Your bare feet feel the chill. You are better served being carried."

Nasir makes a show of complaining, hammering lightly at Agron's ribs and kicking his feet in the air like he is not perfectly happy where he is, with Agron's shoulder cutting into his guts and Agron's hands on the back of Nasir's thighs.

When he is in the mood to flatter himself, Nasir wonders if this is how Agron used to treat his brother. Nasir's own brother is far older than him -they never played together as children- but he has heard stories of Agron and Duro's antics, and he thinks this may be brotherly. Nasir hopes it is. While Duro's fate is unknown to both Agron and Nasir, it is easy to hear the love in Agron's voice when he recalls his brother. That would be enough, Nasir thinks, for Agron to consider him a brother. Nasir could make do with that. Under their circumstances, it is the highest he can hope for.

Laughing, Agron sets Nasir down, and Nasir stumbles as though fallen from sky.

One of Agron's arms catches Nasir before he falls. "Easy, I should not like to see your brains scattered across floor."

"Nor I," Nasir adds, falling onto one of the stools that line his room.

Agron stoops to pull the box containing a comb from under the bed. "I have been shirking duty, allowing your hair to grow more mussed."

Nasir smirks. "Do not let yourself grow too mired in guilt, lest you lose sleep over transgression."

Smiling, Agron tosses the comb into the air and then deftly catches it again. "Hold still."

Balbus, the old manservant, had combed Nasir's hair every morning for years, his wizened fingers prying loose knots with the detached precision of a barber. It was never like this.

Agron always starts by pulling his fingers along Nasir's temples, then down behind his ears and to the back of his neck in order to collect all of Nasir's long black hair between his hands. He runs his hands through it once, twice, three times before reaching for the comb. ("I've never touched it before," Agron said on the first morning. He offers no explanation as to why he continues to caress Nasir's hair each morning.) Balbus' ministrations would inevitably cause Nasir to wince as strands were pulled free of their moorings, but Agron's warrior hands are surprisingly gentle, endeavoring to keep Nasir's scalp from feeling any pain.

"I am no young girl that cannot bear her hair pulled," Nasir has protested on more than one occasion. "You have bruised me more than this many a time on practice field, teaching me to hold weapon."

"That was on practice field," Agron always replies, calmly picking out a snarl, "this is not."

After that, Nasir leans his head into Agron's hands, exposing his neck, and lets Agron do what he will.

Worst is at the end of the day, when sun has set and they walk into Nasir's rooms, tired by whatever the day had held. Agron lights oil lamps, and they flare to life, lighting his face until he looks akin to a golden statue, worthy of worship. Once the room is lit, Agron's eyes -they do look greener in lamp light- flick over to Nasir, and he beckons Nasir over almost playfully.

Then, every night, Nasir walks to Agron's side, and turns so his back is to the man. Then, every night, Agron skims his fingers over Nasir's shoulder, as though he is searching, until he reaches the pin that holds the greater folds of the toga in place. He pulls it free, and the fabric cascades downwards to hang about Nasir's waist, held only by a straining belt. Then, every night, Agron reaches under the folds of silk to reach the cord of Nasir's belt and untie it, letting the remainders of the robe fall to the floor, puddling around Nasir's bare ankles.

But tonight, Agron is taking longer than he normally does to remove Nasir's day clothes, and his knuckles keep skimming across Nasir's back, leaving trails of gooseflesh behind them. Nasir does not know if there is a purpose to it, or if Agron is unaware of his motions, but the fleeting touches are driving Nasir to distraction, and when Nasir's robe is finally off, the evidence of the distraction is protruding plainly from between his legs. When Agron's fingers freeze partway through undoing Nasir's braid, Nasir knows that Agron has seen.

Nasir clears his throat. "Apologies."

Agron's voice is wooden. "No offense is taken, dominus."

The word hits like a knife, and Nasir's eyes fall to the ground in shame. "Do not call me that, I beg you."

"Is it not true?"

"You know I can claim no mastery over you," Nasir says, finally meeting Agron's eyes. "Nor over my own body," he adds, waving a hand ruefully down at himself.

He will not have Agron think this of him. Agron's regard is one of the few things he may call his own in this house.

"But you could, were the urge to strike you," Agron counters. His face is shadowed, and his expression has never been harder for Nasir to discern than it is now.

"It would not," Nasir exclaims, his voice almost at a shout. "We have known each other for many a year, Agron, do not accuse me of this without proof."

Agron looks down at Nasir and shrugs helplessly, his forlorn expression contrasting with his hard muscles and sharp scars. "I know not what you want from me," he says softly, casting his gaze over Nasir's chambers.

Nasir closes his eyes. He cannot watch that mournful face any longer. "I would take whatever you give me. Nothing more."

Sometimes Nasir wonders if this would be easier if he could lord over Agron as a true master to a slave would. But he could never. Agron would not be Agron with a harsh hand keeping his nose to the dirt. As it is, Nasir can only close his eyes and offer up what truth he can.

Muscled arms wrap around Nasir's shoulders and pull him to Agron's chest. The evidence of Nasir's desire has long since subsided, and now he can be tucked into Agron's embrace, to be held as though he were something precious. Agron heaves in a breath, and Nasir's face moves with Agron's chest.

One who does not know Agron may see his scars, his wild hair, his weapon-ready muscles, and see a man built for battle and naught else. Nasir can at least claim to know Agron's tender side, the one that forgives, if only on occasion.

"Sie besitzen bereits mein Herz," Agron murmurs quietly.

Nasir listens to the thud of a heart underneath his ear, but does not ask what Agron said. Those words were not meant for Nasir's ears.

XXXXX

Nasir remembers when he was fourteen, and almost killed:

_"Fucking Romans," his father snarled, pacing back and forth before Nasir's bed like some predator. "If they cannot bear Syrians as powerful as they, they must direct their aggressions elsewhere! Do you not agree, Nasir?"_

_Nasir's throat was dry and almost mute- he had been throttled, and the bruises rang round his neck in a collar. _

_"Do you not agree, Nasir?" Asu pressed. _

_Coughing, Nasir rasped, "yes Father." It burned but Nasir must do as Father says. _

_Asu paced the room further. He had long since cast the medicus from the room for hovering. "This shall not stand," he muttered fiercely to himself. "To think that they should dare touching a Faruk... I will have them killed, of course, and-" he paused in his incessant movement, and Nasir was glad, for following the motions had been making him dizzy. "You shall learn the way of the gladius or spear, Nasir. Teach insolent Romans to touch a Faruk."_

_Nasir was no fucking soldier, he was far more comfortable with papyrus and an inkwell, but when Father commands, Nasir follows. He nodded, then tortured his throat again as he croaked, "yes Father."_

_Baron, the guard who had served the Faruk house longest, was set as Nasir's tutor. The gladius was heavy in Nasir's hand, and the repetitive routes he was meant to take with the blade bored him quickly. _

_"Dominus," Baron gritted out again, "you lower guard on downswing still."_

_"I know, I have heard your words the last hundred times around," Nasir snapped back. This was not his place, he belonged inside, where the chilled water ran plentiful and the harsh sun was blocked away behind arching ceilings. He was a Faruk._

_Nasir could hear Baron's patience fraying as he battled to remain polite. "Try again. Perhaps hold your shield closer to torso, if it pleases you dominus."_

_Nasir repeated the drill again. It reminded him of being a miner at work chipping away at the same impenetrable rock day after day. Useless._

_Rubbing at his temples, Baron grunted, "again."_

_Sighing heavily, Nasir glanced at the sun. Their lesson should be nearing completion. He hefted the gladius again, the muscles of his arm straining. Holding the blade above his head, he swung down in an arc towards the sack of burlap and leather meant to be his attacker. _

_A hand jabbed against his left side, and Nasir jumped, dropping the gladius with a clatter. He looked up, meeting green eyes. He knew them. _

_"You are dead," Agron said. _

_"That hurt," Nasir protested, rubbing at where Agron's fingers had needled into him. _

_One of Agron's thin eyebrows arched up cockily. Nobody had ever given Nasir such an impudent look. "A dagger would hurt more, little boy. Again."_

_Hesitantly, Nasir picked up the gladius, shaking it slightly to rid it of dust. He raised the gladius again, and Agron caught his elbow. _

_"Slowly," he ordered._

_There was something odd in the way Agron gave orders. The boy spoke them not for the sheer joy of power, but for the plain purpose of teaching the way of the gladius properly. His green eyes watched the blade for accuracy, not Nasir for his reaction. It was freeing, not being judged for who he was, but what he did. _

_Nasir swung the gladius slowly, as though straining through honey. Halfway through his strike, Agron reached to tuck Nasir's shield closer against his stomach, then let Nasir land his blow across the target. _

_"Better," Agron allowed._

_Baron clapped Agron on the shoulder. "You can handle this, can you not?" Without waiting for an answer, Baron sauntered away._

_"Fucking bastard!" Agron hollered after Baron, but the older man merely waved a hand at Agron as he continued to walk. _

_Crossing his arms, Agron turned back to Nasir. "Fine. Again."_

_Nasir would never be able to hold his own in a battlefield, but under Agron's tutelage, he would come to understand the battle fervor that could grip some men. With Agron, the gladius, the shield, the spear, held meaning. They were not mere tools, but outlets for anger, for the fires that burn under every man's skin. _

_Nasir found that he had more anger within him than he had at first believed. When Agron would roar and strike the practice dummy as though it had sold him into slavery personally, Nasir could follow the older boy and find his own peace in the thud of weapon against target._

_"Why are you laughing?" Nasir asked one practice, chest still heaving from the last round of drills._

_Agron stopped, and his face returned to its original neutrality. Nasir had not wished for that. "You make faces when you strike."_

_"Faces?"_

_Agron demonstrated a wide eyed baring of teeth, then stuck his tongue out, wagging it ferociously. _

_"I may carry expression on my face, but no such-"_

_"Trust me, your face could be placed on many a joker's mask."_

_"Fucker."_

_"The little boy can curse!"_

_Nasir made Agron his first bodyguard not long after that. In Agron's words,_fuck _anyone_ _who said an upstart German slave not yet twenty could not hold a high position to the son of one of the wealthiest families in Rome. _

_He knew he made the right decision when a second assassin fell upon them in the marketplace, and Agron sent him to his knees in less than three minutes._

XXXXX

"It was near creek that ran past village -I told you of this?"

"Yes, with the ducks a man could hear from hours walk away."

"Those damned ducks. But Duro and I were walking through creek when we heard rustles from bushes -these are high ones, with thorns, so we dare not look through them- and Duro has his bow at the ready, and I a large stone I found on creek bed. He turns to me and says 'are you prepared, brother?' I said yes, and we readied ourselves for battle, myself all of eleven, he younger still, our children's toys in our hands. The shadow in the bushes grows closer, and out bursts a fucking rabbit!" Agron collapses into guffaws of laughter, nearly bending double on his pallet.

Nasir lets his head fall to his own mattress. He is splayed across it in the wrong direction, his feet on his pillows, so that he might watch Agron's face as they speak.

"We... realized too late we could capture it still, make... ourselves a meal," Agron chokes out between laughs, "but... instead he lost an arrow to the creek, and I my rock. The rabbit must have laughed all the way back to its den!"

Watching Agron collapse into giggles as though he were eleven once more, Nasir comments, "I see not from where this mirth stems."

"Had you been there, Nasir, you would be laughing as hard as I. It was... the look on Duro's face!" Agron tries to imitate it, but his face is too prone to smiling just then for him to hold Duro's expression for long.

"I should have liked to meet him," Nasir says, playing with the edge of one of his blankets. "Deniz was so old, I never played with him as you did with Duro."

Agron sighs. "Brothers are never as loved as when they can no longer be reached."

Nasir dangles a hand down from his bed so that he may touch Agron's shoulder reassuringly. "You do not know if he is dead."

"Nor if he is alive. Neither answer would bring me peace," Agron says bitterly, "yet I still have no answer at all, and that tries me as well."

For as long as Nasir has known him, Agron has been a man of action. Sitting and waiting for verdict to fall does not become him.

"Would that I could free you, to see what fate befell him."

Agron's smile is sad. It does not reach his eyes. "Gratitude for that, Nasir. But your action is not needed."

"How so?" Nasir has always assumed that Agron wanted freedom. Only in recalling his memories of Germania does Agron's face truly lose its tenseness.

"I am comrades with all of those that guard the walls. My collar is easily removed with weapon from armory, and I have no fear of roman 'justice,' as they call it. As your manservant, I am no longer required to hold company with another at all times of day. So I can move without supervision." Agron's eyes flit to Nasir in the darkness. "My role has become such that should I wish to run, I could."

Nasir's breath catches for a moment. He wishes for Agron to be happy, but the selfish parts of him wish that he could find this happiness with Nasir.

"But I do not," Agron continues, prompting Nasir's breathing to resume.

"And why not?" Nasir asks. They are treading dangerous waters.

Agron's eyes meet Nasir's own, and he smirks ruefully. "Do not play the idiot with me, Nasir. It does not suit you." He curls his fingers between Nasir's, gripping them within his own, larger hand. "My loyalties have long been split."

Between the thundering of his heart, all Nasir can gasp out is, "oh." More than a brother, then, for all that Nasir is still loath to break their bonds of fellowship to truly love Agron the way he should be loved.

"Oh?" Agron's eyebrows raise playfully, but Nasir knows the man is hiding a hidden hurt.

"My loyalties are also thusly split," Nasir hurries to add.

Agron smiles again, and this is not his sad smile, this is his heartbreaking one, the one that flashes white through the darkness and makes the giant of a man look like a wide-eyed boy, eager and pleased. "Then we shall be fucked together!" he cackles with reckless abandon. "Would that we could split ourselves in half, eh?"

Laughing helplessly into the cushions of his bed, Nasir squeezes Agron's hand hard, happy to have found a companion on the tightrope he walks.

He falls asleep, and wakes with phantom pins stabbing into his hand, but seeing that he has beaten Agron to waking this once, Nasir considers it worth it.

XXXXX

Meals, on the rare occasion that they are held as a family, are detailed as the tragedies the Grecians put on, and equally painful.

Agron helps Nasir into his finest robes, and accompanies him to the dining room, where he takes his leave, barred from entering the eating area. Nasir watches him go, then opens the door.

Bow to Father and nod to Mother and give another bow, less deep this time, to their guest of the afternoon, Enver Saada. Pull back his chair without scraping it and place a cloth across his lap and drink the wine and laugh dutifully and eat the food without spilling a piece across the table. Act interested in the latest arena drama (Nasir does not care about this Spartacus of whom Enver speaks) and Senate drama (Nasir does not care about Crassus either) and slave drama (Nasir certainly does not want to know which of his house slaves Enver is fucking, no matter how much Asu laughs about it.)

"Nasir, did you hear that?" his mother asks.

"Yalda of course he heard," Asu says impatiently, "what say you to that, Nasir? It shall serve a boon on both of our families." He nods at Enver, who smiles unctuously.

Glancing between his parents and Enver, Nasir stutters, "ah, I, I did not actually, hear-"

Yalda looks beseechingly at the ceiling and Asu frowns. "Nasir, your distraction shall one day prove your downfall."

"Yes father. Apologies father."

"What we were speaking of," Enver clarifies with a greasy smile, as though he is granting Nasir a valuable favor, "was a marriage between you and my daughter."

Well. The prospect was bound to come at some point. Nasir is of age, and Deniz has not yet fathered a son. Nasir traces the edge of his cup. It is silver and engraved with grapes, should the drinker forget the origin of the wine they are drinking. He could stall with Enver, but were he to stave off a marriage, another would come in a short time. The Faruks are rich and Nasir is a Faruk- marriage to some other rich family is inevitable. May as well pick this one. At least the Saadas are also Syrian, and Nasir will not have to please some prissy Roman bride.

Nasir smiles, and hopes it does not look out of place on his face. "That would please myself and my family very much, Enver. Much gratitude for the offer."

His mother nods minutely. Nasir has done well.

"Excellent!" Enver spreads his arms wide as though he were to embrace Nasir over the table, but then he returns them to his meal. "You should serve my daughter well."

Enver barely knows Nasir, but it does not matter who Nasir is. He is but an arm his family may use. No body cares for the emotions of the arm- it is but a tool.

XXXXX

Nasir runs his fingers over Agron's shoulder, exploring the hills and valley of muscle there. "I cannot tell if the muscle has healed, Agron, I am no medicus."

Agron shifts the shoulder carefully under Nasir's hands. "Surely you can tell something."

The shoulder is arm and smooth underneath Nasir's hand, but he cannot discern any change underneath the skin. He knows not what Agron wants of him, unless he were an oracle, he could not tell the condition of Agron's shoulder.

Looking up, Nasir realizes that Agron is watching him, a wry smile on his face.

Nasir snorts. "I suspect ulterior motive in this, Agron."

"Perhaps. Look again, Nasir?"

Nasir returns his hands to Agron's body. He is but digging his own grave, indulging thusly when their days are limited, but there is no question that he will continue digging until he can no longer lift a spade.

XXXXX

It is not anything close to a feast, but food snatched from the kitchens in the dead of night rarely is. At any rate, Agron looks satisfied with his haul, meager as it is.

"A full stomach to bring on sleep faster," he explains, passing Nasir a pomegranate, and keeping one for himself.

"I would think that all of your remedies involve food."

"It is the universal cure to ill," Agron replies confidently, nimbly picking seeds from the fruit cradled in his hands.

Smiling softly, Nasir attends to his own fruit.

"I would know what dogs your mind, preventing sleep," Agron says after a time.

Nasir shakes his head. "It is nothing." He does not like to lie to Agron, but nor would he like to shatter this peace they have built, in the hours where they are unseen, in the stillness of the nights, in the hidden looks they send over others' heads.

Agron makes a skeptical noise that sounds like a prize bull snorting. He leans down until his height is level with Nasir's, and one of his hands cups Nasir's chin, almost encompassing it in its wideness. "Nothing does not make a man lie awake each night, tossing and turning as though blown by some foul wind."

"Fears for the future," Nasir allows.

Agron withdraws. "You and I both."

Neither of them sleep that night. They sit upon Nasir's bed, cross legged like boys, and eat every last one of the pomegranate seeds, as Persephone sealed her deal with Hades.

XXXXX

Deniz has started growing a beard. It reminds Nasir of the tuft of fur that hangs from a goat's chin.

"Brother!" Deniz greets Nasir, clapping him on the back. Deniz has always embraced aggressively. Nasir fears for the health of his wife's back.

"Deniz," Nasir greets in return.

The two brothers sit on cushioned couches in one of the living rooms and pluck grapes from a gilded bowl. Deniz's wife is expected to deliver in the spring, his trading vessels are doing well in Africa, and he is considering adding a few more fig trees to his grounds. Nasir is doing well, he is progressing in his studies, Father is considering putting him in charge of their lines of saffron traders, and yes, he is to marry the Saada's daughter within the month. Yes, Nasir is happy, of course.

Deniz strokes his wispy beard thoughtfully. "My congratulations to you brother. And my apologies about Agron." He gestures out the window to the courtyard, where Agron is sunning himself, free of work for once.

Nasir tenses. "Agron? What of him?"

Waving one hand to calm Nasir, Deniz reaches for another grape with the other. "Nothing new to concern yourself over. I mean only that he is your favorite, and you will doubtless be leaving him here upon your marriage."

There is no point in denying it. "Ah, yes. I have thought upon it, and I shall miss him. He had a certain charm," Nasir replies neutrally.

Deniz's eyes soften, catching his brother's bluff. "I had a favorite too, once. Naevia? She left while I was still a child, and you barely walking. You would have liked her though. She was a good friend to me before Father sold her to some other house. Yet, take heed, Nasir. It does no good to dwell over slaves. No happiness can be found there. Better to keep to your own." Deniz chuckles bitterly. "We are as bound as they, in a way. No man could say our fates are our own."

With that grim comment, Deniz turns the conversation to gladiators. Nasir will never understand Rome's preoccupation with them, or why his thoroughly Syrian brother has caught interest.

XXXXX

"And he shall move to the villa in east of the city with your daughter."

"Of course. A retinue of slaves from the Saada house will accompany them, of course."

"Then the wedding can be held in one month's time?"

"That is pleasing to my ears, Asu."

"Excellent, Enver."

"You're going to love her, Nasir."

Nasir slams the door of his room behind him, and Agron, lounging in the sun streaming in through the window, looks up in alarm.

"What ails you?"

Shaking his head, Nasir leans against one of the frigid marble walls of his room. It hurts too much to look at what he cannot have.

Two large hands cup his face and make him look into two concerned green eyes. "Nasir."

Whoever determined Agron to be slave, and Nasir to be master had been faulty in their judgements. Nasir is powerless to defy Agron.

"I am to be married in a month," he says. The words are simple, but his voice crack as they leave him and he realizes this is the first time he has spoken them aloud. Now they are true, and the fact reverberates through him.

Agron's eyes close for a moment, then two. His hands do not leave Nasir's face. "I should have known."

"It was inevitable," Nasir placates, "I am of that age."

Nodding rapidly, one of his thumbs stroking over Nasir's cheek, Agron repeats, "I should have known."

"I don't even know the woman," Nasir adds, anything to open Agron's eyes again.

"Of course not," Agron whispers, "that is how marriages are conducted here, like a slap across the face -sudden- and I, I should have, I was not prepared-"

"Agron-"

"No, it is fine,I-"

"Agron, you are-"

"I will, I will just..." Agron sighs, lost.

Words are not working. Nasir surges forward and wraps his arms around Agron's middle, bringing Agron's face to his shoulder. Perhaps if he hangs on hard enough, he can stop them from fracturing apart like shards of broken pottery. Nasir can only barely see over Agron's shoulder. The great lug, he thinks fondly.

One of Agron's hands wraps around Nasir's waist, while the other buries itself in his hair. Nasir feels Agron's face press against his temple, and they stand like that, swaying slightly in the wake of the news.

Agron pulls them towards Nasir's bed, and Nasir panics. He cannot know Agron's touch once, only to have it then taken away from him. The way they are now, Nasir can pretend that he can still walk away, that Agron has not claimed every part of him that matters.

But Agron makes no move to undo Nasir's robe, or reach under it. He merely lays down, pulling Nasir with him, and curls up behind Nasir, wrapping his arms around him. They tighten like a vise, and Nasir feels consumed, swallowed up by Agron, surrounded by him on all sides. It is a good feeling.

Agron heaves out a breath, and it flutters Nasir's hair into his face, but Nasir likes it. It is proof that they are alive.

XXXXX

In the weeks before his wedding to a woman he has never met, Nasir begins to count time's passage by the nights, rather than the days. Days are filled with the eyes of others upon them, with meals with his parents, with wedding preparations.

The house is becoming inundated with new hired servants to prepare for the festivities, Nasir cannot walk without bumping into some new decoration, and Mother insists he try every last dish that will be served at the wedding banquet.

Instead, Nasir concentrates on the nights.

There is the night when he stumbles into his room late, still reeking of the villa of whichever Roman his father had desired to impress, and finds Agron already curled up in the sheets, and Nasir can imagine for a moment what it would be like if they could carry on this way. He lets himself pretend, and slips in next to Agron as though he had done it every night for years. Still lost in slumber, Agron snuffles and crushes Nasir against him with a massive arm.

There is the night when Nasir sits against Agron's chest, in between his legs, and they gaze up at the ceiling, inventing new stories for each of the mosaics that spangle it in tile. The depiction of Jupiter casting a lightning bolt becomes Jupiter holding a misshapen sword, about to be beaten in battle, because, as Agron says, _fuck him_.

There is the night when Nasir arrives to their room, their sanctuary, still dressed in the robes for his wedding that the seamstress was fitting on him, and Agron is twitchy and sullen for hours until Nasir takes the robes off on his own, clasps Agron's hands between his own, and says, "you hold my heart. Only you." Agron is warmer after that.

"Baron thinks that you are fucking me into oblivion in order to have a last vestige of fun before you are married," Agron comments casually one afternoon, as they sit alone in one of the courtyards, Nasir with a half-abandoned scroll in his lap.

Nasir swallows hard. "As does the entire house, I assume. Have they not always believed that of us?"

Agron smirks suggestively. "This is true." He leans forward, and says very deliberately, "know this. I would fuck you into oblivion," Nasir's skin suddenly feels too tight, "if I did not then have to watch you leave. You have no idea, Nasir, what I would do to you, were our positions different. If I could claim you and have my hold be lasting."

Nasir is short of breath. He glances around for anyone watching them, then leans forward until his forehead is resting against Agron's own. "I shall be driven mad by you," he murmurs.

Laughing, Agron cups the back of Nasir's neck. "We shall race each other. See who becomes gibbering fool first."

Nasir may ignore the tension between them, push it aside because it is too difficult to deal with, but he feels it nevertheless. At this moment, of course, but also when Agron leans down to Nasir's level, and Nasir knows that he need only move forward a few inches to press their lips together, and in the mornings when he can feel Agron's desire pressed against him, barely concealed by the white wrap he wears about his waist, and when Agron embarks on a quest to discover the hidden ticklish spot that Nasir once confessed to having. It sears through his veins, this want, but he knows that giving in would only add fuel to the fire, and when he must be parted from Agron, he would become naught but dead ashes.

XXXXX

It is two days from the wedding, and Nasir continues in trying to cast it from his mind. His family is set to make it the social event of the season, and the guest list is some eight handspans long. He himself is being driven to insanity, trying to remember each and every detail of what he is meant to do on the day in question.

Stinking like pomp and circumstance, Nasir gratefully opens the door to his rooms, wishing for nothing more than the reassuring heat of Agron's shoulder to prop up his head. But Agron is not there.

Nasir casts his head around, as though Agron were hiding his bulk behind some piece of furniture, just barely out of sight. He is not. The room is empty.

Looking out the window in case he should see Agron in the yard below, perhaps exercising his shoulder against better judgement, Nasir's brow furrows in worry. If Father had reassigned Agron to some other task, while Nasir only had two days left with the man...

The door opens slowly, and Nasir thinks for a moment that it cannot be Agron, for Agron always swings open doors with a bang and a clatter, his exuberance too loud to be waylaid by the small matter of a door.

Yet it is Agron, who slips through the barely open door like a wraith, then shuts it as though it were made of glass.

"What is this quietness in you, Agron?" Nasir inquires. There is an expression on Agron's face that he likes not the look of.

Agron has a bag over his shoulder, a worn, sturdy thing that must be his own; it does not bear the artificial frills of anything from the Faruk house.

He smiles, and it twists on his face, as though the mere gesture pains him. "Nasir." Agron's mouth opens, then closes again, as though the words in his head had flitted off, mindless of his need for them.

Stepping forward to hold Agron's jaw in his hand, Nasir repeats the question.

Exhaling heavily, Agron wraps his arms around Nasir's waist and pulls him in. Nasir relaxes into the familiar embrace. Agron's touch has always calmed him. He can only hope that his own touch will do the same for Agron.

After a time, Agron withdraws his face from where it was nestled at the meeting of Nasir's neck and shoulder, and slowly grits out, like each word pains him as it falls from his lips, "I have come to make farewell."

Nasir grips at Agron's back so he cannot withdraw any further. "We have days yet. What brings on this promptness to wish me farewell? You are late in all else," he teases halfheartedly.

Agron's green eyes, so unlike anything Nasir has ever seen, flit to the ground. "_I_... am leaving. Now."

"You- no," Nasir shakes his head, "you are meant to stay by my side, and I by yours."

"You know that cannot be." Agron is blinking more than is usual, seeking to remove the wetness from his eyes. "I only bring on the inevitable faster. There is a caravan of traders that is moving west. They care not of my past, and I can serve as a guard for them as they move towards Germania."

Nasir nods dully, feeling as though the ground had been stripped from underneath his feet. Germania. Duro. Agron's family. Nasir cannot keep him from that. Though he had thought they had more time.

The broken smile slips across Agron's face again, and Nasir wishes he could take it away. "I said once that I could not leave while my loyalties were so fucking split, but now..."

"Now I am to be taken from your side," Nasir finishes for him.

Agron nods, tightening his grip on Nasir. "There is no reason for me to stay, now you are to be ripped from my arms." A flash of anger strikes across Agron's face. "Were I not a slave, and were you not the son of your family, I would take you from this place in a heartbeat."

Heartbeat quickening, Nasir leans into Agron further. "And I would follow you."

Perhaps because this is the last time their gazes shall fall upon each other, or perhaps because the tension has lasted too long, or perhaps because their faces are simply so close, Agron ducks his face down to Nasir's level and presses their lips together, achingly slowly.

Nasir savors it, presses his lips back against Agron's and drinks in the sensation of being surrounded by him, held like something to be cherished. It is everything and nothing like he pictured: Nasir had spent many a night imagining what the muscles of Agron's stomach would feel like, pressed so intimately against his own, but he had never thought that this rough man could kiss so sweetly. Nasir had always supposed that were they to kiss, it would be in a flurry of groping hands and teeth.

This is better. This is indescribably better because it is real, it is Agron, whom he has yearned for for so many years he has lost count, moving onto his neck, placing delicate kisses along the line of his pulse. Nasir desperately wants Agron to leave a mark, for when...

For when he is gone. Nasir's eyes close. Agron's homeland is an immeasurable distance away. Should Agron succeed in his escape -and Nasir cannot believe that he would do anything different- Nasir will never see his face again in this lifetime. He shall marry, have children, grow old and die, and never again see Agron's face.

Nasir pulls Agron's face away from his neck and cradles it in his hands.

"What-"

"Let me see you," Nasir pleads. Agron stills, and holds himself for Nasir's observation.

The ever present stubble. The lips that can so easily flash between a smile and a frown. The tufts of hair on the top of his head that are taller than the rest. Slightly crooked teeth, thin eyebrows, the scar on the left side of his chest, just above his heart. Like brushstrokes, the little details that make up Agron's physiognomy come together to create this man who Nasir never wants to forget.

Scraping a thumb over Agron's cheek, Nasir leans in to press their lips together one last time. Then he does it again, and again, until they are doing little more than brushing their lips together and breathing each other's air.

"I have always wanted to do that as a free man," Agron confides breathlessly. "A wish fulfilled."

Nasir laughs and he does not know why.

Agron's escape is as simple as he predicted. Nasir walks him to the front gate on pretense of some task or another. When they are beyond the view of the guards, Nasir pulls his sharpest knife from the fold within his robes, and cuts the heavy material of the collar from Agron's neck. Nasir is so used to ignoring it ringing Agron's neck that he had barely realized it needed removal.

Agron says "I've taught you the ways of the blade well. Do not forget them when I have gone."

Nasir says, "you hold my heart," for there is little else he can say, and Agron reels him in for one last last kiss, and this one does bear teeth and tongue, and grasping hands, but it is a mere goodbye.

With Agron's touch still lingering on his skin, Nasir pulls out what denarii he has and pushes them into Agron's hands. One last touch, the last last touch, for good, and then Agron walks down the path leading into the city proper, a dark figure on the blinding white paving stones of the road.

Nasir stays to catch every last glance Agron sends back at him, but it is too short a time before all that he has left of the man is the broken remnants of a collar and an emptiness in his chest.

Walking back to the house, Nasir's breaths feel hollow, mere circulations of air around a gaping cavern, and his legs, strengthened from so many sessions practicing kicks with Agron, feel as sturdy as melted honey.

He collapses into his bed when he gets to his rooms, for what else can he do?

It takes a long time for sleep to reach him. He had become used to sleeping warm.

XXXXX

Nasir remembers the first time Agron saved his life:

_They were moving through the crowded throngs of the market, for Nasir was insistent that he find his own reeds for writing, since Plinius never purchased ones thin enough. The bustle of the crowd was blinding, flashes of bright baubles and gnarled old tokens around their necks, bags and packs bumping into each other, the inevitable clatter of feet against feet as people collided. It was no wonder that Nasir did not notice the knife at his back until Agron bodily pushed him away from it. _

_"Ag-" Nasir stumbled, still clumsy with his last growth spurt._

_Agron was grinning madly at the would-be assassin, who was too caught in fear to move. "Thought you'd have yourself a seared Syrian for lunch, you fucking shit?" he asked, fingers flexing around the man's neck. _

_"I, I-" the assassin stuttered. He must have been new to the profession. Any response he may have haphazardly assembled was cut off as Agron's fist drove into his face, sending the assassin to the ground in a puff of dust. _

_Agron had weapons: a gladius slung across his back, knives at his waist, but he chose instead to beat the assassin with his fists and feet, meeting every blow the assassin threw at him with matching, harder ones. _

_Nasir had one hand at the knife hanging from his belt, but his lessons would not be needed that day, for Agron had the attacker under his thumb, with no need for Nasir's help. _

_The crowd formed a circle, some by desire to get away from the brawl, some to watch from a safe distance as Agron flung the assassin across the ground, as he smashed and stomped and twisted the assassin's body into shapes unknown. _

_After both of the assassin's arms had been broken, Agron trussed him up like a pig for roasting and threw him over his shoulder to take back to the house. Nasir was astounded by the level of sheer physical force coiled within the German. He had known Agron was strong, but their beginner's practice with the gladius and the spear had not shown him how strong. _

_The assassin was given to Asu and his men to be dealt the unique form of Faruk justice, and just before they parted ways, Nasir to his rooms, and Agron to the barracks, Nasir commented, "surely you did not have to beat him so? No man in this house expected more from you than a parry of assassin's blow to me, and then ropes around the man's wrists."_

_Agron's face was deadly serious for once. He looked fierce and otherworldly, nothing like Nasir knew from his perfumed life of cushioned seats. "I will not do what is expected of me, can I help it. I will do what I wish. Were I to follow every whim of a dominus, every expectation of me, I would be a slave the rest of my life."_

_Nasir raised an eyebrow. "And you will not be?" He was so naive then. _

_Grinning cockily, Agron said, "no. And you would do well to do the same."_

XXXXX

The main hall is well prepared for the wedding tomorrow. Silken banners hang from every marble arch, the floors are waxed until they reflect the ceilings perfectly, flowers occupy every last piece of space in droves, the most intricate of art pieces have been commissioned for the event, and they hang on or stand near the walls like jewels, perfect in their composition.

Nasir hates every last inch of it.

His father's body slave, Plinius, bustles down the blood red carpet that leads up to the altar. "Young master Faruk! There you are. Urgent news."

Nasir perks up. Perhaps something to distract him.

"I have just been in contact with Enver Saada's body slave, who informed me that Saada's daughter will be wearing green tomorrow. Now this means that you must be fitted for the green robe, rather than the original blue one."

Blinking, Nasir follows Plinius down to the seamstress' quarters. There, he dutifully raises and lowers his arms and legs to be measured, bends here and there when instructed by men and women who do not look him in the eye when they speak or smile in blinding, face-splitting grins.

His father and mother stroll in.

"and Yalda," his father is saying, "I looked over dowry again, and when the boy marries Enver's daughter, I will have enough to finance an entirely new spice venture. This, my dear, is what children are for." He laughs. "Greetings, Plinius, Nasir. Plinius, my robes?"

Plinius jumps to work. "Yes dominus. The new embroidery has been done." He grasps a folded square of orange silk and sets to replacing Asu's current robes with the embroidered ones. "Your opinion, dominus?"

Examining himself, Asu declares, "most well!"

"Excellent. And your son's wedding robes are being switched out for green ones, to match Saada's daughter. I hope you do not mind, dominus."

Asu claps Plinius on the shoulder. "One step ahead as always, Plinius. And Nasir!" Father is being jovial. He is likely drunk on wine and the promise of money. "You are doing good work as well. Do not think I have not noticed you preparing yourself well for wedding ceremony. You both do our house proud." He nods at Plinius and Nasir, then begins changing back into his original robe.

Nasir allows himself to return to his daze as his father redresses, letting the seamstresses move his limbs as though he were a doll.

His parents make for the door, so Plinius and Nasir dutifully call out in unison, "enjoy your day!" as they leave.

Plinius smiles politely at Nasir in acknowledgement of their shared words. Nasir only stares back as his world unravels.

Agron had always spoken of freedom with a wistfulness, longing for his days of being free to make his own decisions, to determine his own fate, to make his own choices. Nasir had wished Agron could find that, for he wanted Agron to be happy, but now, Nasir realizes that perhaps he should have wished that for himself as well. All this time Nasir had considered himself free. My neck may have never held a collar, he thinks, glancing out of the corner of his eye at his twin, Plinius, but I have never been free either.

The fine robes around Nasir's shoulders have never felt so constricting.

In his studies, Nasir had read the words of a philosopher from Greece, a few hundred years ago. Plato, Nasir thinks his name was. He spoke of men that lived within a deep cave, thinking the shadow plays they saw performed on the cold stone walls were all that reality consisted of. Then they were shown the sun, and a new world was discovered.

In the windowless seamstress' quarters, Nasir can feel the sun.

"Excuse me," he tells the woman measuring the length of his arm, "I must be elsewhere."

She glances at Plinius.

"Ah, young master Faruk," Plinius objects in his obsequious way, "may it perhaps wait until after fitting?"

"No," Nasir says, and the word feels good upon his lips. "I must leave now, as soon as possible."

Plinius' eyebrows draw together, but Nasir is already slipping out of the grasp of his wedding robe, and into the more comforting embrace of the one he was wearing before.

He takes the steps up to his rooms in a haze of wonderment. Nasir is going to do this. He will find his own freedom, and Agron with it.

It is a simple matter to pack, a less simple one to write the letter that he shall leave for Deniz. Deniz is the only one of his family that may even begin to understand Nasir's decision, but it is still hard to place the words on paper.

Yet Nasir does, and finds himself wearing his most practical clothes ––the breeches he wears for combat training–– and a pack on his back within the hour. He spares a moment to look at his rooms one last time. For as long as the Faruk family had lived in Rome, he had lived in these rooms, and now he is leaving. True, for many years, it had only been him, a lonely child roaming around with furniture too large for him, but he has fond memories of the bed, and this place was also a refuge on many a teary night in his younger years.

He nods to the room, then leaves.

XXXXX

His purpose is discovered when he is found in the weapons room, grabbing his favorite spear.

"What is your purpose with that pig-sticker... dominus?"

Nasir's head whips around to find one of the new guards ––Varius–– who they hired for the coming event, leaning against the doorway with his arms crossed.

"It is no matter," Nasir says blithely. He must act as though nothing is wrong.

Varius' eyes fall upon Nasir's well stuffed bag. "Many a man has felt fear as their wedding day approaches. However, should I let you run, your father would have my head." He moves to block the door entirely. "Hand me that spear, little man. It is too big for you."

Nasir's jaw twitches. He will not have this now.

He steps forward slowly, palms up. "I do not..." he says slowly, moving his feet into the stance Agron taught him, "like..." he whips the butt of the spear around to hook around Varius' ankle, "being called little man!" he cries as he pulls the spear butt forward, pulling Varius off balance so he falls to the ground.

Agron had taught him well. Nasir can feel the thunder of battle in his veins.

Varius hits the ground with a loud thump, and Nasir quickly cracks the spear butt against Varius' temple to send him to unconsciousness. There is no need to allow him to raise the alarm.

Satisfied, he steps over Varius carefully, heart hammering. Nasir creeps around the outbuildings to the side gate, where he lifts the creaking iron bar that holds the bars closed, then steps through to the other side of the high walls that surround the Faruk house.

Walking backwards slowly, Nasir takes in the heights of the old, cold house one last time, then turns his back on it. The road he faces now will not stay well paved with white stone for long. It shall soon turn dusty and tiresome, and Nasir may not find Agron on it for a time. Yet he shall follow it with unchained feet.

Grinning, Nasir takes the road.


	2. Chapter 2

Just... pretend that belief in Norse gods is historically accurate for Germans circa 70BC

XXXXX

Agron hates horses. One of the few advantages of his position in the Faruk house was that he never had to go near them. The place had Nasir, and a lack of horses going for it. No wealth of happiness, to be sure, but what it did have, he misses now.

Sighing, Agron tries again to hold the rowdy horse he is leading in check. All of his thoughts round back to Nasir, no matter how hard he tries to push him from mind.

"We hold afternoon meal soon, I trust?" he calls to Lugo, who is walking nearby. Lugo is a jovial man, fast with a bawdy joke or a guffaw to lighten a man's spirit. He even speaks in Agron's mother tongue, a glorious respite after so many years without hearing it.

"I should hope so, sun is past its highest point," Lugo hollers back. "These fuckers don't let us break for meal soon and I'm calling a mutiny!"

Agron's heart catches within his chest. High noon has passed. Nasir is now married. He is no doubt smiling that forced smile of his as he takes his wife to bed to reluctantly fuck children into her even as Lugo and Agron speak. Agron would be a liar if he did not envy the woman for her place in Nasir's bed, however unwelcome it may be. How often had Agron lain in the barracks, or even upon his pallet in Nasir's rooms, and imagined in detail the feel of Nasir's skin under his hands, of his neck under Agron's teeth, his legs wrapped around Agron's waist?

More than her right to Nasir's body, Agron envies the woman for her place by Nasir's side. Agron had oft daydreamed of, by some miracle, taking Nasir with him to Germania. He would give Nasir his furs when the man inevitably became chilled, wrap an arm around his shoulders without fearing the gaze of others, and build a cottage with Nasir not far from the land of Agron's family. Two men sharing a home there was unusual, but not unheard of east of the Rhine, and Agron would have borne the rare sideways glance happily, if it meant he and Nasir were together.

Duro would have loved Nasir, Agron is sure of it. If not at first, then because Agron made him. Now, Agron can only tell Duro stories ––if Duro even lives–– of the Syrian from Rome who kept Agron's heart when Agron left.

"Aha!" Lugo shouts gleefully, "front of caravan is stopping. We break for meal."

Lugo spares no time tying his horse to a tree along the side of the road, then making for one of the wagons that carries the dried meats. Agron follows him with less haste, but joins the other guards as they take their rations from the tight-fisted wagon master. The traders that own the wagons of goods underestimate the hunger of their guards ––all Germanics with a healthy appreciation for large portions of meat–– but all of the guards get their meals eventually, and retreat to a patch of shade under a half wilted tree.

Agron lazily keeps an eye on the endless line of wagons that make up their trading caravan, but there are no other passersby on the road, so unless some enterprising thief has found his way to invisibility, the cargo faces no threat. Agron remembers the rushing throng that filled Rome's marketplaces and bazaars, how he had to keep on high alert, should some Roman filth with sticky fingers or sharp instruments come near Nasir.

"Our man Agron is lost in thought again," Saxa comments around a mouthful of salted goat meat.

Donar guffaws. "He has not enough thoughts to be lost in."

"Fuck yourself with a spear," Agron snaps halfheartedly.

"Ah, but I see," Lugo slaps a hand against the ground, "he is still caught in thoughts of boy he left behind."

"Worry not on him," Saxa scoffs, "he has led you to us! What is the love of some Syrian boy when you have the love of kinsmen in land far from home? Unless we are not fucking good enough?" she asks teasingly, poking Agron's back with a bare foot.

"Of course you are good enough," Agron drawls. "Good enough to scrape the shit from my shoes!"

Lugo cackles and grips Agron in a headlock. "That's my man!"

The guards fall into a familiar routine of trading barbs and insults at one another, but Agron knows that it is only the bonds of kinship that let them abuse each other so. It is a welcome contrast from the tight laced, obedient speech he had to master when speaking with anyone other than Nasir.

Agron is lost again in remembrance. What would Nasir look like as an old man? Agron chuckles lightly to himself at the thought of Nasir, ancient and wizened, gray hair hanging down to his knees, before sobering again.

There is a figure riding along the road towards the caravan, backed by the sun so their features are shadowed out. Agron can tell from the bare chest of the figure that it is a man, and from his outline, he can tell that the man's hair is long.

Nasir.

Agron is on his feet, shading his eyes to gain a better view and prepared to race down the hill before he realizes that the rider is blond, and a fair ten years Nasir's senior. Another false alarm.

"Does threat approach?" Donar asks urgently, making to stand as well.

Agron gestures for him to sit. "No. It looks to be a farmer. He takes wide berth around the caravan, at any rate."

"Phantom lovers," Saxa muses, an eyebrow raised.

Lugo groans in sympathy, then rises to clap Agron soundly on the back. "Next town we come to, I take you to worst drinking house they have, get you proper drunk. Naught better for a broken heart than the distraction of addled mind and pained stomach."

"Do not think I shall be paying, you stupid cock," Agron warns. "for I will need gallons."

XXXXX

The next town is a shithole. The two main roads west out of Rome join there, and out of their union sprang a muddy excuse for a town, built of ramshackle timber shacks braced by the beggars sitting at their bases. The rich men of Rome are blithely having marble carved in their likeness as these people rot.

The drinking house is alright. When Agron and Lugo first walked in, even Agron had to wrinkle his nose at the stench, and squint in confusion at the goat comfortably chewing on a scrap of leather in the corner, but now he is at the bottom of his third jug of the weak watered wine, and the drinking house has transformed from foul to alright. Another three and perhaps it will be charming.

Agron rotates the jug around in his hands, watching the dull red liquid slosh discontentedly against the clay walls of the jug. Someone is yelling at someone else in a language he does not know, and it is giving him a headache. If he could walk steadily, he would go over to them and hit them both until they shut up, but in his state, all he can do is sit morosely on a crate and cradle his amphora of wine.

Lugo is still on his first amphora, which means he is either drinking less than normal, or Agron is drinking very quickly. He cannot tell, time feels wobbly. Lugo is saying something, and Agron squints at him to hear him better.

"You will like being back. I have made many trips to Roman heat and back, and first touch of snow–– ah, but it is good my friend. Donar always weeps when we return home, if he says I lie, then he is fucking lying. Sedullus spoke of-"

Downing another gulp of the wine, Agron leans back against the gritty wall of the drinking house. Lugo's beard is funny. It is short.

"He was so short," Agron slurs into his wine, "I could throw him over shoulder. Only did once, though."

Lugo sends Agron a look, and calls for more wine. "We drink until sentimentality is gone. Do you not understand purpose of drinking house?"

"I understand purpose of drinking house!" Agron retorts loudly. "I am fucking drinking."

"Not enough."

"Wine is too slow."

While they wait for a new amphora of wine, Agron regales Lugo with stories of Nasir. Lugo looks uncomfortable after a time. Perhaps he has had too much wine.

"His teeth were so small," Agron laughs. His joints feel loose. Is he still sitting on the crate? He is not, and he struggles to make his way back onto it. "with little gaps in between each one," he points a finger at his own teeth and pokes himself in the mouth. "Straight though. Very straight teeth. Good for licking. And eyelashes. He had eyelashes."

"And two arms and two legs and a nose and a cock too, I'll bet," Lugo chuckles.

"Yes." Agron says seriously. He does not understand why Lugo is laughing, of course Nasir has all of his limbs. He is perfect.

Lugo shakes his head, grinning. "From what you say, this man must rival Freya, or -what do they call her- Venus in beauty."

Shaking his head, Agron points out the square hole in one of the walls that serves as a window. "He looked sort of like that man. Nasir is not a woman, Lugo. That is whole point." Agron takes another swig of the wine. It gets fouler as he goes, but less watery. This jugful must be from the bottom of the barrel.

Lugo glances out the window at the man in question. He is short, and long-haired, but Agron has mistaken every long haired man they have passed in the last few days for Nasir, and he has given up hope for a miraculous reappearance. "Heh," Lugo snorts, "that one reminds me of Tyr more than Freya."

Craning his neck, and almost falling off of the crate again, Agron looks out the window to see that the man who reminds him of Nasir is now wielding a spear with ease, batting off some combatants in the street. Passersby keep walking past without a hand to help, but the short man is holding off his two attackers well.

"Nasir could wield a spear," Agron mumbles. "I taught him. Best student I ev'r had. Only."

His eyes are not focusing well, and mixed with the dim light of the drinking house, the man out the window truly does look of a form with Nasir. Agron sighs heavily and scrunches his eyes shut, attempting to cast weakness from them. The man is not Nasir. Nasir is miles away and married.

Lugo squints out the window. "Is he fellow German?"

"What?"

"No, his coloring is too dark."

"What?"

"I say only because that move with spear," Lugo mimes a downward swinging motion, "would work better with hammer. Maybe German-taught."

Knowing he will only be disappointed, but too foolish to let his curiosity go unsatisfied, Agron stumbles to his feet and weaves his way to the window. Nasir is German-taught, Nasir has a spear, he thinks groggily. Bracing his hands on the windowsill, Agron leans his head out just in time to see the short man execute a perfect swing with the spear, knocking the last of his attackers to the ground, then smack the butt of the spear against the man's temple to send him to unconsciousness.

Agron knows that maneuver. He drilled it into a yet blood-shy Nasir many a time when they were boys.

The man outside the window turns around, and Agron dazedly wonders what was in the wine, because he thinks that he is seeing Nasir through the glassless window, but that cannot be right.

Not-Nasir blinks once, his long eyelashes fluttering against his cheeks, and then his hand floats upwards, as if through water, to land upon Agron's cheek. This cannot be, Nasir is in Rome, Agron is never going to see him again.

Then Not-Nasir's thumb softly brushes back and forth over Agron's cheek, and Nasir is the only person that has ever shown Agron that manner of tenderness. Nasir listens to Agron's middle of the night whispers and tells Agron to rest his injured shoulder because he treats Agron as though he were formed of the finest crystal.

"Nasir?"

Nasir's face splits into a wide grin, and Agron knows that face. He knows it like he has known few others. "Yes. Agron?"

Agron can feel his own face growing a smile to match Nasir's, and he nods. "Yes."

Nasir pulls Agron into an embrace through the window, his solid arms wrapping around Agron's waist and his face tucking into Agron's neck. Agron has missed this, missed holding his little man away from the reaches of the meaner world (although looking at Nasir's attackers strewn across the ground, Agron notes with a jolt that Nasir may not need it.) He holds onto Nasir, suddenly found after days of being lost.

"How?" Agron asks when the burning need to surround himself with Nasir has subsided enough that he can pull his face from Nasir's hair.

Laughing incredulously into Agron's shoulder, Nasir replies. "I left. I simply walked out." Agron feels his head shake. "I realized I was not free, and sought to remedy it."

Agron grips tighter. Nasir has more courage in him than any other he knows.

"I had almost lost hope of catching up with you on the road," Nasir whispers fervently into Agron's neck.

Agron rubs gently over one of Nasir's shoulder blades. "Then it is good thing Lugo brought me to get drunk."

"Lugo?"

"Oh," Agron twists his head to look for his kinsman. He is still sitting on one of the crates, obviously trying to not look at them. "I will introduce you."

"In a moment."

"What-"

Nasir's lips cover Agron's, pushing against them desperately. Agron knew he had forgotten something. He surges closer still to Nasir, reveling in the taste of him that he had so feared forgetting. Agron feels full, as though what parts of him that had been missing have finally been replaced. For so long, he had thought that he would have to choose between freedom and love, but now both have miraculously fallen into his hands, and he finds himself lost in his riches.

When Nasir eventually, reluctantly, pulls away, his cheeks are flushed and his lips are wet. Agron examines the sight in satisfaction.

"Now you may show me your friend," Nasir says smugly.

Chuckling, Agron slips a hand down to smack Nasir's ass, then steps back so that Nasir can climb through the poor excuse for a window and into the drinking house. It may have been easier to have Nasir come around the building to enter through the doorway, but Agron would not have them parted so long.

Keeping one arm around Nasir's shoulders, Agron leads him to Lugo.

Lugo raises his eyebrows and crosses his arms. "So this is Nasir."

"Yes," Agron replies. If Lugo and the others do not take Nasir in, then he and Nasir will be making the long trip to Germania alone, a difficult feat at best, a fatal one at worst.

Lugo lets out a single, loud, laugh, claps a startled Nasir on the arm, and booms, "I told you going to drinking-house was good idea! But we should head back now, you are having enough trouble walking, we don't want you to have trouble fucking, eh?" He winks lewdly, and Nasir smiles hesitantly.

"It... is good... to know of you," Nasir stutters out carefully, and it is only then that Agron realizes that he and Lugo had been speaking in German.

"Apologies, Nasir," Agron turns to press his forehead against Nasir's, "I had forgotten you did not speak German."

"You taught me some," Nasir objects.

"Enough for a talk with small child."

Smirking, Nasir shoots back, "so I shall be able to speak with you in mother tongue?"

Agron makes a put upon face and kisses Nasir's forehead simply because he can. "Lugo says only that we should move back to caravan."

Brow furrowing, Nasir notes, "I would not think that the merchants would take kindly to a sudden new addition to their party."

Agron translates the words into German for Lugo, who laughs, and ruffles a disgruntled Nasir's hair. "The merchants are too rich for their own good, and stupid. Do not worry."

Lugo's words prove true, and when they make it back to camp unhindered, Lugo blithely replies to the caravan master's confusion, "you not remember Nasir? You lot never remember who you hire. He is guard!" and Agron wonders when his life became so easy.

There is a blur of introductions, of directions being given and acquaintances being made, but their memory is scraped away as scratches in sand are swept off by a wave when, in the small hours of the morning, Nasir follows Agron into his tent, lays beside him, and captures his lips in an ardent kiss.

Neither man is greatly experienced, having only ever had meaningless, half-clothed rendezvous in corners with strangers, so Agron and Nasir fumble, they catch limbs in clothing as they attempt to remove the offending fabric as quickly as possible, they lose balance and tip over, their teeth clash as they rush into kisses.

It is the best that Agron has ever had. Their efforts at working over each other's bodies may be amateurish, but it is Nasir who trembles in his grip, whose hands inexpertly move between Agron's legs, whose eyes catch Agron's in the dim light and invite him to share in the joke, so Agron minds not. Nor does he mind making a fool of himself in Nasir's eyes, for he has naught to fear but the quirk of Nasir's smile and the reassuring touch of his hand against Agron's face.

Eventually, after the second or third time they spend themselves, their feverish movements slow until there is only Nasir, splayed across Agron' chest ––who is in turn splayed across the sparse pillows of the tent–– and their hands working lazily in between them, more for the enjoyment of the motions than in any pursuit of release.

"I am lucky," Agron confides to Nasir.

Nasir looks up from where he is kissing the skin over Agron's heart. "I did not consider you a man to think of himself as such."

"Nor I, before today," Agron tangles his fingers in Nasir's hair, relishing their smooth slide against his digits.

Smiling gently, Nasir leans up to kiss softly at Agron's mouth. "I feel the same, though my words are now but an echo of yours."

Agron returns the kiss, then smiles wickedly at a memory. "Ah, but you have been echoing me all night."

Nasir looks at him questioningly.

"Yes! When I moan, you moan, when I cry out, you follow in suit-"

Slapping Agron's arm, Nasir admonishes, "Do not taunt the one that holds your cock in hand. Who knows what I may do with it."

Thrusting more enthusiastically into Nasir's hand, Agron murmurs into Nasir's ear, "and what might that be?"

"I- nnn... oh."

Agron has no choice, then, but to flip them over, hover over Nasir's perfection and taunt and tease him until he is muffling his cries into his arm, his giddiness matched only by Agron's own.

Saxa wakes them the next morning with a bucket of water, but they do not mind, for they have each other's company to stave off the chill.

XXXXX

"By the gods," Nasir marvels, kneeling down to run exploratory fingers over the substance that has just begun to cover the ground, "what is this?"

"That," Agron answers with satisfaction, "is snow."

XXXXX

Agron had not thought he would be terrified, and yet here he is, poised on the verge of the creek that runs just outside the village he was born in, with his heart pounding in his chest, and sweat on his palms as they slip around Nasir's hand. Fires are not uncommon here, what if, after an untold time of walking, he and Nasir come across naught but ash and charred timber in the place of the village? Or perhaps they will find the buildings intact, but the people inside struck down by plague. Perhaps none of his family will recognize him, and they shall cast him out with fire and stones in suspicion.

Nasir leaps over the creek, and holds out a hand. He says, "it is but a short leap," but Agron knows he means more than that. Yet he takes Nasir's hand and follows suit over the fitfully gurgling creek, for he knows that he can follow Nasir anywhere.

Even as Agron struggles to tamp down his growing fears, Nasir walks with a spring in his step as they move ever closer to the village. Nasir is intrigued by the new world they are entering, while Agron feels it may have changed too much for him to fit inside it as comfortably as he once did. It had been years, and now they are less than a day's walk away. Agron can barely fathom the enormity of that fact.

"Who will be the first person we see?" Nasir asks, pulling one of his many furs tighter over his shoulders.

"We'll, ah, come through the outer farms first," Agron replies, slinging an arm over Nasir's shoulder to tug him in closer to his body heat. "Perhaps Adalberht or one of his sons."

"Adalberht is the one with the orange beard?"

"Yes. Though it may be gray now." Adalberht had taken great pride in that beard once. He had called it the fire on his chin. Agron would not wish to see that taken from him.

Nasir's brow furrows. "I sense a mournfulness in you."

"It is nothing."

"I do not take you at your word. To hear you, one would think earth splitting open and casting out all of the souls of Hades in bursts of violet flames would be 'nothing.'"

Agron sighs. For better or for worse, Nasir knows him like the back of his hand. "I but wonder what changes time has wrought."

Nasir hums in agreement. "The village will have changed, in the years you have been gone. Yet for all that Adalberht's beard may have changed color, or the longhouse in the village center may have been rebuilt, or the elderly ones of passed on and new ones born, I think it shall still be home, and those that remain shall be glad to see you, at the least."

Smiling, Agron stops to pull aside Nasir's hood so he may kiss his cheek. "And they shall be glad to see you as well, if you can offer to them but fucking fraction of the solace you give me."

When the shape of Oda and Regin's house materializes in the distance, Agron tightens his fingers around Nasir's, but keeps walking forwards. He recognizes the unusual latticework of the fence surrounding their vegetable garden, and the rough stone carving of Fenrir still sits along the perimeter of their land. He and Duro would rub Fenrir's nose every time they passed him as boys, and it looks as though the tradition has continued, for Fenrir's nose is worn into a featureless nub.

Agron mentions this to Nasir, who, intrigued, passes a palm over Fenrir's nose.

"Hello!" a voice calls from the field. It holds the accent of this village, one that their friends in the merchant caravan did not have, the one that Agron has not heard for years.

To make up for Agron's shocked silence, Nasir calls back "hello!" his accent barely noticeable after the months of traveling with the Germans.

Agron forces himself to look up, and sure enough, there is Oda, her braid longer, her waist wider, but her face still bearing the indulgent smile she wore to many a meal with Agron's family.

Clearing his throat, Agron raises a hand. "Hello, Oda."

Oda leans on her hoe and squints towards them. "Do I know of you?"

"Ah..."

"Don't stutter, come here, boy. You and your bundled up friend there."

Agron dutifully steps to, remembering the sharpness Oda could wield when little boys did not follow her words.

"I, my name is Agron," he stutters stupidly.

Oda's eyes widen. "Agron? Not Linza's boy?"

"The same."

"Boy!" she admonishes, "you should have said that at the first!" She gathers him up in her arms, and for all that he has long since surpassed her in height, he feels as a child again within the embrace that had comforted him after many a skinned knee or bruised arm. "I had thought you dead! We all did!"

He shakes his head. "Enslaved. Far from home."

Oda makes a sympathetic noise and her arms tighten further.

"But I am home now," Agron reassures her. He would not know what to do if Oda cried, for such an unnatural thing must mark the ending of the world.

"That you are." She pats a hand against his cheek, then looks to Nasir, who has been tactfully looking the other way. "Now you, I know are not long lost son of village."

"I merely followed one here," Nasir acknowledges.

"Nasir is the one token of my time in Rome that I consider worth the hardships," Agron explains fondly.

Oda nods and winks. "I see your meaning. A faithful one, too, to come so many miles."

Nasir ducks his head.

"What of my family?" Agron asks suddenly. Oda always knew what happened in the village. The answer to his questions lies before him, and he does not take advantage of it?

Oda rubs a hand over her head, collecting flyaway pieces of hair. "They live. Your mother and brother are hale as ever... oh! Duro has married!"

Agron's heart leaps. Not only alive, but thriving, then. "The bride?"

"Rosmunda!"

"No!"

"Yes! It seems their bickering over all those years was fueled by something other than hate."

Agron laughs. "I remember when Duro slopped pig fat into her hair for a laugh!"

"Well she has clearly gotten over any grudges from that," Oda smirks knowingly. "Your cousins are well, though Tancred, Swanahilda and Waltherhave had so many children between them, I can scarce keep track, and I helped with each birth myself!"

"Brilliant!"

"It is at that! Beautiful children. All of Tancred's are mischievous brats, but what else can you expect?"

Of course they would be. Agron can picture them, all bearing Tancred's sandy curls and shameless smile. Suddenly he wants nothing more than to be with them, changes be damned.

"I must see them then," Agron claps his hands together. "Oda, we shall return on the morrow, but now, there are others to see."

As they stride down the worn path to the center of the village, Nasir notes warmly, "it is good to see such excitement in you."

Agron casts a look to Nasir, whose perfect face is shining up at him. His new family will be meeting his old today. How many times has he wondered what he would say to Duro about Nasir? Now, such questions will be answered.

In a fit of delight, Agron hoists Nasir into the air, spinning his little man in a circle.

"Put me down," Nasir objects, "lest you meet the fate of those raiders from Athens."

Wincing, Agron sets Nasir down. The last ill-fated attempt by thieves to take the merchant's cargo had been struck down almost by Nasir alone, who had fought with such vicious skill that even Agron's bones were set to chill.

Nasir straightens his many cloaks as he is set back upon his feet, then points a finger straight at Agron's nose. "I am no doll to be thrown about."

Agron kisses the tip of Nasir's finger, and Nasir's sternness breaks into laughter.

XXXXX

The center of the village has both weathered and grown. The smithy's roof has been replaced, yet the red painted door that graces the building is more worn even than it was when Agron was a child. Children Agron does not recognize prance around donkeys and goats, yet he can make out the wizened features of a few lifelong village residents. He considers greeting them all, but if he pauses to reintroduce himself to every last person in the square, it will be the middle of the night before he reaches his mother's goat farm. Agron recalls well her wrath at being woken in the middle of the night.

As it is, they would be out of the square by now already, were it not for Nasir's insistence on a pair of gloves from the furman's stall. Agron fondly watches Nasir barter with the vendor. Nasir is fair with those he does business with, except when they try to keep him from warm clothing.

"But look at the stitching on sides," the vendor protests, "surely that is worth a fucking coin or two more!"

"For being stitched the way they should be?" Nasir shoots back skeptically. Agron is so proud of Nasir's german.

"For being stitched exceptionally!" the vendor retorts, raising his eyebrows in consternation. There is something familiar about them. "This takes very fine bone needle. Hard to come by. Expensive," he adds pointedly. "Here, you," he looks to Agron, "surely a proper northerner knows true value of a fine pair of kid gloves. Teach your friend."

Agron examines one. The stitchery is fine indeed, but he would prefer to agree with Nasir and sleep warm tonight. "Fuck, my kid brother could sew better than this."

The vendor snorts, tugging on his beard. "Then wherever you are from, babes are taught how to skin a goat from the cradle. In real world, in this village, these gloves are best you can buy."

"_I_am from this village, and I can say-"

"Really?" the vendor cuts him off skeptically, smirking. "Having lived here all my life, I can say you are fucking not."

Damn. The man, near to Agron in age, must have changed enough in his teenage years that Agron does not recognize him now. So much for Agron's bartering tactic.

"Fine," Agron allows, "I have not lived here in many a year. Still," he adds, widening his eyes and switching tactics, "I only ask that you lower price somewhat for Nasir. We have travelled from Rome, and yet do not carry warmth enough-"

"Rome?" the vendor asks. There is an odd timbre to his voice. "You are... you are from here, and have spent time in Rome?"

"Yes, I had been trapped there many years..." Agron is uncertain of the vendor's angle.

"A- are... Agron?" The man stutters out.

Agron's heart stops beating within his chest for a split second. The way the vendor said his name, the slight emphasis on the "r," the upward lilt of his eyebrows as he spoke... Agron recognizes the way that voice wraps around his name, has recognized it since the voice was high and reedy and called "Agwon" instead of "Agron."

"Duro?" he gasps.

Duro's mouth splits in a grin that cracks his face in two. "The same, brother!"

Launching himself at his brother, Agron wraps his arm around Duro's neck and loops his head in for a knuckling on the top of his skull. Duro squawks and pinches the weak spot on Agron's side.

Howling, "you fool! Why did you not tell me you had grown a beard?" Agron twists to toss his brother to the ground of the square.

Duro slips out of Agron's grasp like a fish, just in time to dodge a violent meeting with the cobblestones. "And why did you not tell me you had grown two hand lengths in height?"

"Time makes fools of us all," Nasir remarks wryly from where he stands aside to watch the brothers tussle.

"That is does," Duro agrees. "But happy fools, at that." He pull Agron into an embrace, locking his elbows around Agron's neck. "We had thought you long dead since the slavers came through."

"I am tougher than that," Agron objects playfully.

Duro snorts disbelievingly. "I shall hear tell of the past years in time, I am sure. But tell me who accompanies you," he nods at Nasir. "And why he is so insistent on cheap gloves."

Agron reels Nasir in until Nasir is fully within Duro's view, and also has his back against Agron's chest. "He is Nasir," Agron answers, wrapping an arm around Nasir's waist and glowing with pride. "And he is a Syrian, prone to cold."

"And the affections of a certain giant?" Duro eyes Agron pointedly.

"Those as well."

Duro spreads his arms wide. "Then welcome, Nasir! Take gloves on me, for family never goes cold."

Agron gives Duro a grateful smile. It is good to be home.

**Epilogue**

Agron wakes, as he does every morning, to Nasir's hair splayed across his face. Nasir freely admits that his lengthy hairstyle is inconvenient, but they both prefer it that way. Brushing the hair out of his face, Agron glances out the window. The snow still lies in heavy heaps. Winter is his favorite time in these cold places. There is naught to do but ensure the livestock is fed, then hole up someplace warm and drink until the snow melts from the fields.

Nosing over Nasir's neck, Agron sighs happily. As a boy, his winters were never so warm as they are now, with a naked body pressed against his own, sharing heat as though they were one body. It has been a good winter here.

Nasir stirs, reaching one hand blindly out for a lost cover. Agron uses his longer reach to grab it himself, tucking it around both him and Nasir's shoulders. Humming in gratitude, Nasir presses himself further back into Agron's groin. Agron inhales sharply. Even mostly asleep, Nasir is temptation personified.

"Good morning," he whispers softly. If Nasir does not hear him, Agron will let him be and save their lovemaking for later.

"Good morning," Nasir whispers back in german.

Agron lets his hands drift lower from where they were tucked over Nasir's chest.

Nasir squirms in delight, his feet tangling with Agron's. "Very good morning," Nasir adds, twisting his head for a kiss.

Luckily, they finish their enjoyment of each other's company long before Duro and Rosmunda tramp in, shaking snow from their cloaks and brandishing breakfast.

Duro sits on the bed with no care for Agron's disgruntlement, and passes Nasir a leg of something. "Good morning, beautiful," he greets Nasir jovially.

Rosmunda rolls her eyes at Agron. "My husband's favoritism for yours is endlessly amusing."

Kissing his wife on the cheek, Duro conjures up a packet of dried fruit for himself. "Is it my fault Agron has good taste? No. I fear for Nasir's, though."

Duro spends the rest of the morning cackling and dodging Agron's kicks from under the bedspread.

Life is good, indeed.


End file.
